1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a receiving method and an receiving apparatus for estimating first to Kth (K≧2) user signals among a plurality of user signals transmitted over the same communication channel. More particularly, the present invention relates to a receiving method and a receiving apparatus for canceling interference due to undesired signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a technique for canceling interference caused by undesired signals in a receiver of a digital wireless communication system, there is a method for canceling interference caused by adjacent channels or interference caused by other systems by using an adaptive transversal filter. However, interference from the same channel (same channel interference) can not be canceled according to this method. In addition, there is a method for canceling interference by using error correction code and coded modulation. However, according to this method, effects of the interference are merely decreased by widening a distance between code word in received signals. Thus, interference can not be canceled substantially according to this method.
On the other hand, a vector sequence estimation method is proposed in which an interference signal is estimated and the interference signal is subtracted from a received signal so that an interference component is removed. According to this method, channel impulse responses of an interference signal and a desired signal are estimated, and the interference signal and the desired signal are estimated based on the estimation result of the channel impulse responses. According to this method, since the interference component is positively estimated and the effect of the interference is removed, good interference canceling characteristics can be obtained even when a strong interference signal exists. However, it is necessary to know the number of interference signals beforehand for performing this vector sequence estimation method. In addition, the interference signal and the desired signal can be hardly distinguished from each other when levels of them are close. Thus, there is a problem in that interference canceling ability deteriorates.
On the other hand, as for spread spectrum (CDMA) system, a method is known in which, when interference due to other user signal using other spreading code occurs, an inverse matrix of spreading code word formed by the interference signal and the desired signal is operated on input signal series by using a decorrelating detector so that the interference is canceled. In this case, an MMSE (minimizing mean squared error) type interference canceler and the like may be used. In the MMSE (minimizing mean squared error) type interference canceler, the inverse matrix used by the decorrelating detector is regarded as a variable, and the variable is estimated such that the interference component in an output signal becomes minimum.
In addition, in the spread spectrum system, an interference canceling method by using a multistage interference canceler is used. In this interference canceling method, a transversal filter which uses code word as tap coefficients demodulates an interference signal, and spreads the signal again after hard decision. Then, the spread signal is convoluted with impulse response of the communication channel so that the interference signal is removed from the received signal. After that, a matched filter having code word of the desired signal demodulates the interference removed signal. Then, the signal is decided, redemodulated and convoluted with impulse response, and subtracted from the received signal so that the interference signal is removed. Further, a matched filter including code word of the interference signal demodulates the signal in which the interference is removed. Then, the signal is demodulated, decided, redemodulated and convoluted with impulse response, and subtracted from the received signal so that the interference signal is removed. The interference signal is removed from the received signal by repeating the processes.
The multistage interference canceler removes interference component included in the received signal basically by using a hard decided signal so that the interference is decreased to some extent. After that, transmission characteristic can be improved by performing matched filer receiving. As for CDMA, relatively good transmission characteristics can be obtained since there is a certain Hamming distance between spreading codes assigned to users. However, since hard decision is performed, the transmission characteristic deteriorates compared with that of optimally received signal.
In multimedia communication in the future, high-speed signal transmission becomes necessary. For the high-speed signal transmission, it is necessary to use lower spreading ratio of CDMA such that the spreading ratio does not exceed the limit of process speed of hardware. However, if the spreading code is lowered, the ability of interference canceling is lowered. Thus, an interference canceling apparatus having higher performance becomes necessary.
As for mobile communication, since there are more subscribers than those of cable systems, a cellular system is adopted for accommodating signals of many users in a frequency band, in which the same frequency is assigned to places which are apart. In the cellular system, a signal transmitted in a cell using a frequency may be propagated to another cell which uses the same frequency according to the environment of the service area.
Therefore, strong same channel interference often occurs in the cellular system. In this case, the interference can be decreased by using antenna directivity. For example, it is known that using adaptive array antenna which changes directivity according to change of propagation environment in mobile communications is effective, in which wireless propagation environment of the communication channel in the mobile communications changes every moment according to movement of terminals and peripheral devices.
In the adaptive array antenna, assuming that the number of antenna elements is N, N−1 interference signals can be suppressed. However, it is known that the transmission characteristics remarkably deteriorate if interference signals more than N−1 arrive. For reducing this deterioration, a spatial region multistage interference canceler is proposed in which the adaptive array antennas are structured as a multistage structure for suppressing interference. However, this method is equivalent to adopting adaptive arrays instead of ICU (Interference Canceling Unit) which performs demodulation of interference signal, hard decision and removes interference component based on hard decision signal in the CDMA multistage interference canceler. Therefore, since the spatial region multistage interference canceler can perform only hard decision like the CDMA multistage interference canceler, the spatial region multistage interference canceler can not perform optimal receiving so that transmission characteristics deteriorate. Especially, since any value corresponding to the Humming distance between codes of the CDMA multistage interference canceler does not exist in the spatial region multistage interference canceler, the degree of deterioration of transmission characteristics due to hard decision is larger.